I half turned.
"Falcone..." I began.
And then my mother's white hand fell upon my wrist.
"Come, my son," she said, once more impassive.
Nervelessly I obeyed her, and as I passed out I heard Falcone's voice
crying:
"My lord, my lord! God help me, and God help you!" An hour later he had
left the citadel, and on the stones of the courtyard lay ten golden ducats
which he had scattered there, and which not one of the greedy grooms or
serving-men could take courage to pick up, so fearful a curse had old
Falcone laid upon that money when he cast it from him.
CHAPTER III
THE PIETISTIC THRALL
That evening my mother talked to me at longer length than I remember her
ever to have done before.
It may be that she feared lest Gino Falcone should have aroused in me
notions which it was best to lull back at once into slumber. It may be
that she, too, had felt something of the crucial quality of that moment in
the armoury, just as she must have perceived my first hesitation to obey
her slightest word, whence came her resolve to check this mutiny ere it
should spread and become too big for her.
We sat in the room that was called her private diningÂroom, but which, in
fact, was all things to her save the chamber in which she slept.
The fine apartments through which I had strayed as a little lad in my
father's day, the handsome lofty chambers, with their frescoed ceilings,
their walls hung with costly tapestries, many of which had come from the
looms of Flanders, their floors of wood mosaics, and their great carved
movables, had been shut up these many years.
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